Tartaglia was born in Portsmouth, England, and grew up in Hereford, where he started playing alto saxophone at age 11 after hearing Cannonball Adderley's recording of "Another Kind of Soul".
[1] [2] He was winner in the soloist category of the Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Competition in 1991 and successfully auditioned in Frankfurt for a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, Boston, where he studied from 1992 to 1993; his saxophone teacher was George Garzone.
[...] This approach works extraordinarily well, the pieces - all first takes - mixing expressive solo tenor lines and childlike, often wordless singing over marching beats ... Not an easy listen, as if its subject matter would allow that, but certainly a hugely rewarding one.
'[19] Dark Metaphysic (2008) features a 'Free Funk Assembly' of two vocalists and six instrumentalists, including British jazz luminaries Annie Whitehead (trombone) and Jennifer Maidman (bass guitar).
In a review for All About Jazz, Jeff Dayton-Johnson writes that the 'philosophical references accumulate pretty fast and furious—there's a piece dedicated to conceptual artist Bruce Nauman, who once dedicated a quizzical square of aluminum to John Coltrane (his John Coltrane Piece, 1969), as well as a song about Hermes Trismegistus, a mysterious combination of Hermes (Greek) and Thoth (Egyptian) who figures prominently in the philosophical systems of Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra'.